EMMA GETS IN TRIM FOR ANDES CHARITY TREK

Intrepid fundraiser Emma Jones from Oakdale is getting in trim for a mammoth 70 mile hike through the Peruvian Andes in aid of a Newport hospice - by having all her hair shaved off!

The 30-year-old, who works as an audit manager with professional advisors Broomfield and Alexander in Cardiff, is going under the cutters because it will mean not having to worry about keeping her hair washed on the week-long trek – and is also a chance to earn some last-minute sponsorship money!

The cut will take place at the Talk of the Town hairdressers on High Street, Blackwood at 1.30pm on Friday 23 September, the day before she flies off to Lima to begin the adventure.

Emma will be joining 15 other participants on the trek aiming to raise £50,000 for the St David’s Foundation, the care hospice on St John’s Road, Newport, which cares for over 2,000 people every year with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

Emma, who hopes to raise £3,000 herself, decided to take on the challenge of the trek because she lost her Mum to cancer four years ago.

“As a family, we were able to support Mum during her illness, but it made us realise how awful it must be for people with cancer who do not have that family support,” she said.

“The St David’s Foundation fulfils that role, and I’m so pleased to be able to do something which can help them in their work.”

The Andes in Peru are home to millions of highland Indians who still speak the ancient tongue of Quechua and maintain a traditional way of life.

The trekking route Emma and her party will use follows a little-used Inca trail through stunning scenery, passing snow-capped mountains and glacial peaks. The journey will end in the lost city of Machu Picchu, Peru’s most famous Inca ruin, which had been abandoned to the forest for over 500 years before being re-discovered in 1911 by an American historian Hiram Bingham.

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